


the angels have heaven (but I have you)

by LittleMissLiesmith



Series: On The Existence of Angels in Night Vale [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angels, Drink to Forget, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:03:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2131254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissLiesmith/pseuds/LittleMissLiesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angels don't exist. Even if they did, they're all named Erika, and none of them are named Cecil.</p>
<p>This is at least half true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the angels have heaven (but I have you)

**Author's Note:**

> I thought "the best of us" would be a one time thing but apparently I write for Night Vale now? Huh. Enjoy.

Cecil is a radio host and always has been; and if sometimes he feels like he should introduce himself as "the angel", that's just silly, because everyone knows angels don't exist, and if they did they would all be named Erika anyway. There aren't any angels named Cecil.

(Sometimes, in the moments before sleep, he wonders if Cecil would be his name as an angel; and sometimes, in the moments when he wakes up, he hears a soft and silky voice calling him "angel dearest".)

-O-

Carlos is beautiful and Cecil falls in love instantly, falls in love with dark hair and good cheekbones and dark skin and oddly enough he sometimes feels like Carlos should be wearing sunglasses.

But that's just silly. Carlos, like Cecil, wears glasses; sunglasses look silly overtop of regular glasses.

(It isn't for a while that Cecil remembers he doesn't actually wear glasses and never has.)

-O-

There's a sweater vest in the back of Cecil's closet. A tartan one. He wears it to the town meeting Carlos calls, because he may just be a reporter but Carlos is beautiful and maybe for a bit Cecil would like to feel beautiful too.

(He thinks this to himself and the voice says "you are beautiful, angel")

So he wears the sweater vest and introduces himself to Carlos afterwards and Carlos stares at the vest for a solid minute before looking over his glasses at Cecil with something like disappointment and says "Nice to meet you, Mr. Palmer."

"Nice to meet you, too, my dear," Cecil says, and then he wants to die because here he is talking to a handsome man and where the hell did the "my dear" come from? He has never called anyone "my dear". Ever.

But apparently he calls Carlos that now, because when he does the scientist's mouth twitches up into a smile, something that Cecil might call a _devilish smirk_ if he were the sort inclined to use that kind of descriptor.

But he isn't, and he isn't sure where the phrases _my dear_ and _devilish smirk_ came from anyway.

(That night he looks in the mirror and for a second doesn't see himself, sees someone with sandy-blond hair and glasses about ten years older than himself wearing his clothes, and he wouldn't think anything of it if it weren't for the fact that he is sure he had that mirror covered, and is in fact sure that he has never owned a mirror. He smashes it and throws it out the window and feels much better.)

-O-

One year later, Carlos tells him "I just wanted to see you" and Cecil gets the odd feeling that the scientist used to be much more suave. Which is weird because as long as Carlos has been in Night Vale, for all his slender good looks and inexplicable need for sunglasses, he has been slightly awkward. 

One month later they have their first date. As first dates go, it's nice; but Cecil's voice (it had been quiet for almost a year and he thought it was gone) says, very quietly, "let's do the Ritz."

"Do you know what the Ritz is?" he asks the next day.

Carlos blinks at him in surprise. "It's a restaurant and hotel. A pretty expensive one. I've been--wait, I've never been there, what am I saying? It's very high-end. Why?"

Cecil doesn't answer and instead wonders if Carlos, too, has a small voice in his head that whispers things to him in the time before dawn.

-O-

One Wednesday, after they have moved in together, Cecil is doing the laundry and trying to avoid the small sea serpent that is currently waging war against the sudsy water when he finds something of Carlos's--a scarlet red dress shirt and black jacket. He's never seen Carlos in these items before but an image still pops into his head, fully formed, and for some reason in his mental image Carlos is driving an old-fashioned Bentley and Cecil-but-not-Cecil-from-that-night-with-the-mirror is beside him licking cream cake off his fingers.

"Have you ever worn this?" he asks when sorting the laundry after Carlos gets home.

Carlos studies it. "Huh. No."

"Will you?"

Carlos is just as dashing as Cecil remembers or imagined.

-O-

One night after talking to Carlos, Cecil is sitting alone at the counter when a cream cake catches his eye.

"Did you make this, Faceless?" he asks aloud, and when he turns back around the word NO is spelled out in dead ants on the counter.

"Then who did?"

There isn't an answer.

Cecil swipes a finger through the frosting and closes his eyes as he licks it off, trying to remember or to forget. He isn't sure.

But the memory returns in full force. He and Carlos at a child's birthday party (without any chainsaws, which is weird, and with some dead doves, which is calmingly normal) when a cake explodes. Driving home in the car as Carlos panics and Cecil licks the cake off his fingers.

" _You can't imagine the kind of things they can do to you, down there,_ " dream Carlos says.

Cecil tastes cream cake and tries to remember. Tries to forget.

-O-

If you are something, say nothing, and drink to forget. The night they're talking and Carlos calls Cecil angel, Cecil winds up following his horoscope and drinking in a quiet room.

"Dolphins," he says to no one in particular. "Dolphins. And doves. Flying to a mountain. Dolphins are a kind of mammal and you watch the Sound of Music forever. I remember, I remember."

He drinks more. No one drinks to remember, after all.

-O-

Carlos comes home and it's the happiest day of Cecil's life, and he kisses him and then takes off his glasses and sees yellow eyes. Not smiling-god yellow, just yellow, and slit like a snakes.

"My dear," he says, "what--"

"Angel," not-Carlos, dream-Carlos says. "Angel, we need to talk."

-O-

Angels do not exist and they aren't named Cecil.

One of these statements, at least, is true. Angels aren't named Cecil, they're named Aziraphale. At least, this one is.

Carlos talks a lot about the desert dimension and about hell and about reincarnation and it goes over Cecil's head. He mentions an apocalypse and a failure and drinking and punishment and then he says a name and the name is Aziraphale and Cecil looks up and sees a mirror uncovered, sees in the mirror the older man still wearing his clothes.

Sees himself.

Carlos says another name and the name is Crowley, and Cecil-or-Aziraphale carefully pulls sunglasses off of Hiram McDonalds's third head (he's having supper at the next table over and won't miss the glasses) and slides them onto Carlos.

Crowley looks at Aziraphale and grins, and it's feral and a _devilish smirk_ and oh-so-right. "That feels nice," he says. "Thank you, angel."

"You're welcome, my dear," Aziraphale says.

They order another round.

Angels don't exist in Night Vale so Aziraphale can't be an angel, and Crowley wants to go back to being Carlos because Carlos is allowed to stay with Cecil.

"I will miss the Ritz, though," Cecil says after a few rounds. "And my books."

"And the Bentley," Crowley says mournfully. "But science is nice, too. And you have the radio show. And we have each other."

One more round is all it takes.

-O-

Next time Cecil sees a mirror somewhere a mirror shouldn't be he looks away; next time he calls Carlos "my dear" he apologizes for the slip; next time he sees a cream cake he cuts a slice and eats with a fork, careful not to get any on his fingers.

He doesn't say anything about what he sees, and doesn't say anything about what he does, and when it comes to what he is every so often he and Carlos sit down and drink their way to the bottom of a wine cellar and forget who they were, and they remember who they are and where they are and Crowley and Aziraphale disappear from memory, slip away like so much sand.

But it's okay. Because Carlos is home and Cecil always has been and they aren't who they were and the nice thing about angels not existing in Night Vale is that no one can find them.

Not even themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are welcomed. Comment and I love you forever and we will marry in June.
> 
> (I propose marriage a lot on this site. Huh.)
> 
> Seriously, though...if you kudos, try to leave a comment. 
> 
> For about four hours there was a sequel to this but it was awful...sorry about that. Now there's a less-awful sequel, go check it out!


End file.
